Hickory Smoked St. Louis Style Ribs

What are St. Louis Style Ribs?

Ready to do this? Let’s get to it. Here's what you'll need.

Ingredients

• One 2 lb rack of St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs
• Olive Oil, Hot Sauce, or Mustard
• Your Favorite Pork Dry Rub
• 1 cup of Apple Juice or Apple Cider Vinegar

Equipment

• 1 Offset Smoker, Pellet Grill, Ceramic Grill, or Charcoal Grill
• Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil

Prep the Ribs

Most spareribs that you find in grocery stores have already been cut in the St. Louis style. If the packaging doesn’t say “St. Louis style” you should be able to tell based on the very symmetrical, rectangular shape of the ribs. If you have full spareribs, you’ll need to start by trimming away the breastbone, rib tips, and squaring off the rack before you’re left with a St. Louis style cut. The folks over at Serious Eats have a great walk-through of the process.

Once you're working with a St. Louis style cut, there are still a couple preparation tasks you need to do. First, remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. This is the thin but tough, translucent white layer found covering about half of one side of the ribs. Use a dull knife or your fingers to get a corner of the membrane peeled away from the ribs. Then, using a paper towel for grip, you should be able to pull the rest of the membrane off in one go. This membrane is naturally tough, and won’t render down as well during the cook. Removing this ensures a clean, tender bite through on your finished ribs.

Next, do any clean up trimming needed to make a clean, uniform rack of ribs. This includes removing any small dangling pieces of meat or fat that may dry out during the cook. You may also need to remove the diagonal flap of meat that is part of the pig’s diaphragm. You’ll find this on the same side of the ribs as the membran you just removed. Lastly, square off the ends of your rack if necessary, by removing the small ribs on the end. SAVE ALL THESE TRIMMINGS! This is good meat that you can include in a number of other dishes, including baked beans and sausage filling.

BBQ Prep Knives

Season the Ribs

Now it’s time to put our first layer of flavor on the ribs. Make sure they are dry of any moisture if you haven’t already. Starting with the backside, apply a thin layer of binder. This can be olive oil, hot sauce, or mustard, and it will help the dry rub stick to the meat. Don’t worry too much about the flavor here - you won’t really be able to taste it after 5-6 hours in the BBQ. Next, sprinkle a liberal and even amount of your favorite dry seasoning onto the ribs, and gently rub it in to make sure it sticks. Check out some of our favorite pork rib rub recommendations below, or our list of the Top 15 BBQ Dry Rubs.

Alternatively, you can use a simple mix consisting of a 3:3:1 ratio of kosher salt, black pepper, and paprika.

Great St. Louis Style Ribs Dry Rubs

BBQ the Ribs

The prep work is done and it’s time to put these bad boys on the barbecue! We’re going to be using a 3 stage approach for these ribs - smoke, wrap, and sauce. The first stage is going to infuse the ribs with awesome smoke flavor, and a beautiful mahogany color. The second stage is where we’ll get the ribs up to an internal temperature where the connective tissues start to render down, giving us perfectly tender ribs. In the last stage we’ll sauce the ribs, applying our final layer of flavor and getting a beautiful tacky finished texture.

Smoke

Get your smoker or BBQ running around 225 degrees, and loaded up with your favorite hickory wood logs, chunks or pellets. Our goal in this stage is low and slow, bathing the ribs in maximum smoke. Place the ribs in your smoker or BBQ in a single layer and over indirect heat. Let these hang out for 3 hours, spritzing about every half hour with apple cider vinegar or apple juice if the surface starts looking dry. Other than that, keep your BBQ closed to make sure all that beautiful smoke stays inside - if you’re lookin’ you ain’t cookin’!

Great Backyard Smokers

Wrap

After 3 hours, your ribs should have a beautiful red-orange color to them, and the meat should have started to slightly pull away from the ends of the rib bones. Remove the ribs from the BBQ and increase your cook temp to around 250. Give the ribs one last spray of apple cider vinegar or apple juice. Using long sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil, wrap each rib tightly with the dull side of the foil facing out.

After you’ve made sure the foil wrap is tightly fitted to the ribs, place them back in the BBQ for 2 hours. I’d recommend keeping this stage to around 2 hours. Every time I’ve gone over that mark, the ribs have been seriously overdone. While they are fall-apart tender, they lack any sort of structural integrity. 2 hours at this temp seems to be the sweet spot to getting very tender ribs that can still hold their shape in rib form.

Sauce

After 2 hours wrapped, remove the ribs from the BBQ and carefully unwrap them (watch out for hot steam!). The rib meat should now have noticeably pulled away from the ribs, revealing a quarter to a half inch of bone. We’re done cooking the ribs in this last stage. All we are doing is applying sauce and making sure the final texture is on point. After unwrapping the ribs, baste the tops with your favorite BBQ sauce. Have fun and experiment! If you went with a spicier dry rub, maybe try a sweeter sauce to balance out the heat. You can also mix a little apple cider vinegar or apple juice into your sauce to thin it out before applying it to the ribs. This often helps you get a more even coat of sauce on the ribs.

Awesome St. Louis Style Ribs Sauces

St. Louis Ribs Finishing Glazes

Once sauced, return the unwrapped ribs to the BBQ. Cook the ribs for another 15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced and becomes tacky to the touch. You’re done!

Remove the ribs and let them rest for 10-15 minutes. Carefully slice between each bone and serve with additional sauce, your favorite sides, and plenty of napkins!